Summary: Chapter III — The Quest of the Golden Fleece
Hamilton’s account of the Golden Fleece comes from Apollonius
of Rhodes, a Greek poet from about 300 b.c.
Athamas, a king, gets tired of his first wife, Nephele, and marries
a second, Ino. Ino wants Nephele’s son, Phrixus, out of the way
so her own son can inherit the throne. Hermes sends a flying golden
ram to rescue Phrixus and his sister, Helle, who falls off the ram
and dies. Phrixus safely reaches the land of Colchis, where he sacrifices
the ram to Zeus and gives its skin—the Golden Fleece—to Colchis’s
king, Aetes.
Meanwhile, a man named Pelias has usurped the throne
of Phrixus’s uncle, a Greek king. Jason, the deposed king’s son,
grows up and returns to reclaim the throne. En route to Pelias’s
kingdom, Jason loses a sandal. Pelias is afraid when he sees Jason
approach, as an oracle has told him that he will be overthrown by
a stranger wearing only one sandal. The wicked Pelias pretends to
acquiesce but says that the gods have told him that the Golden Fleece
must be retrieved for the kingdom first. This is a lie—Pelias assumes
that anyone sent on that dangerous journey will never come back.
Jason, intrigued by the challenge, assembles a remarkable group
of heroes to help him, including Hercules, Theseus, Peleus, and
Orpheus. Their ship is named the Argo, so the group is called the
Argonauts.
The Argonauts face many challenges on the way to Colchis.
They first meet the fierce women of Lemnos, who have killed their
men, but find them atypically kind. Hercules leaves the crew, and
the Argonauts meet an oracle, Phineus. The sons of Boreas, the North Wind,
help Phineus by driving off some terrible Harpies who foul his food
whenever he tries to eat. Phineus gives the Argonauts information
that helps them pass safely through their next challenge—the Symplegades,
gigantic rocks that smash together when a ship sail through them.
After narrowly avoiding conflict with the Amazons, bloody women
warriors, and passing by the chained Prometheus, the Argonauts finally
arrive at Colchis.
Though more trials await here, Hera and Aphrodite help
Jason. Like Pelias, Aetes pretends to want to give Jason the Fleece
but first demands that he complete two tasks that are designed to
kill him. Aphrodite sends Cupid to make Aetes’s daughter, a witch
named Medea, fall in love with Jason and help him through the tasks.
The first challenge is to yoke two fierce magical bulls with hooves
of bronze and breath of fire, and Medea gives Jason an ointment
that makes him invincible. The second task is to use the bulls to
plow a field and sow it with dragon’s teeth, which causes armed
men to spring up from the earth and attack Jason. Medea tells him
that if he throws a rock in the middle of the armed men, they will
attack each other, not him. After Jason’s success, Aetes plots to
kill the Argonauts at night, but Medea again intercedes, warning
Jason and enabling him to steal the Fleece by putting its guardian
serpent to sleep. Medea joins the Argonauts and flees back to Greece.
On the way home, she commits the ultimate act of love for Jason:
to help evade the ship’s pursuers, she kills her own brother, Apsyrtus.
On the way home, the Argonauts pass more challenges,
including safely navigating Scylla, the dreaded rock; Charybdis,
the whirlpool; and Talus, the giant bronze man. Upon returning,
Jason finds that Pelias has killed his father and that his mother
has died of sadness. Jason and Medea plot revenge—Medea convinces
Pelias’s daughters that they will restore Pelias to youth if they
kill him, chop him up, and put the pieces into her magic pot. Out
of love for their father, they slice him to bits, but Medea leaves
the city, taking her magic pot with her after first restoring Jason’s
father to life.
Medea and Jason have two children, but Jason leaves out
of personal ambition to marry the daughter of the king of Corinth,
who banishes Medea and her children. Infuriated by the unsympathetic Jason,
Medea enacts a terrible revenge, sending her two sons with a beautiful
magic robe as a gift for Jason’s new bride. When the girl dons the
robe, it bursts into flame, consuming her and the king as he rushes
to her. Medea then kills the two sons she had with Jason and flies
away on a magic chariot. This tragic final chapter in the story
of Jason and Medea is the subject of Euripides’ play, Medea.
